Caravan of pickups at Apache Sunrise Dance

At the end of a Sunrise Dance, the first menstruaton rite of an Apache girl, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA, a caravan of pickups loaded with gifts travel from the camp of the family of the girl to the camp of her godparents. Girls dressed in camp dress and moccasins sit on the platform of the last pickup. The Sunrise Dance is the most important ceremony of the Apache Indians. It is held during the summer, within one year after the girl has had her first menstruation, and lasts for four days. The rites are supposed to prepare the girl for adulthood and to give her a long and healthy life without material wants.

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Filename: 4585.jpg
Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5592x3672 / 13.9MB; America American Southwest Apache Arizona Coming of Age Girls Joy Life Cycle Ritual Native Americans Native North Americans North America Outdoors Religion Rite de Passage Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Smiling Sunrise Dance USA United States of America adulthood blue sky camp dress cars ceremony cheerful cousins cultural and ethnic dress ethnic ethnic group ethnic minority gifts happiness happy indigenous people life cycle ceremony maturity minority moccasins native-americans ornament outside pickup puberty rite religious sunshine teenage girls
Contained in galleries: Apache sunrise dance, USA

At the end of a Sunrise Dance, the first menstruaton rite of an Apache girl, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA, a caravan of pickups loaded with gifts travel from the camp of the family of the girl to the camp of her godparents. Girls dressed in camp dress and moccasins sit on the platform of the last pickup. The Sunrise Dance is the most important ceremony of the Apache Indians. It is held during the summer, within one year after the girl has had her first menstruation, and lasts for four days. The rites are supposed to prepare the girl for adulthood and to give her a long and healthy life without material wants.